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FTSE 250 movers: Dunelm right at home while The AA loses its way

London's FTSE 250 was up 0.42% at 20,312.13 in afternoon trade on Wednesday.

Dunelm was the day's big riser after annual results provided a more reassuring toe than the profit warning earlier this year. Results for the home furnishing retailer's 12 months to 30 June, which had been largely flagged in a pre-close update, saw profit before tax and exceptional items fall 6.7% to £102.0m on sales up 10% to £1.05bn, with like-for-like sales up 4.2%.

"I feel the market was expecting a warning from them today especially given the hot weather but performance is in-line as is current trading so they have delivered a very creditable result," said Jamie Constable at broker N+1Singer, noting that August has seen a significantly better performance after the hit in July from hot weather.

Another riser was Galliford Try as it posted a jump in full-year profit and revenue as completions rose, with the housebuilder saying it was making "excellent" progress towards its strategic objectives across all three businesses.

In the year to 30 June, pre-tax profit stormed an impressive 145% to £143.7m, on revenue of £3.13bn, up 11% on the previous year.

Sports Direct jogged higher as it said that chairman Keith Hellawell is stepping down and trading was in line with the group’s expectations of achieving an improvement in underlying earnings of between 5% and 15% for current financial year, excluding the acquisition of House of Fraser.

Liberum reiterated its 'buy' rating for shares in the sportswear retailer, giving a target price of 520p, declaring that the fall in the shares since July's results was unwarranted and that the acquisition of HoF "could prove to be a shrewd strategic move".

The AA was the big faller in afternoon trading the government pledged to invest in the UK’s zero emission vehicle industry. The AA welcomed the move but warned that fleets will only benefit if they receive enough support.

Hot on the heels of the motoring association was TI Fluid Systems, which found itself on the back foot after private equity group Bain Capital sold around 60m shares in the company. Bain Capital sold the shares at at 262 pence each raising proceeds of £157.2m, of which the automotive fluid storage, carrying and delivery systems developer will not receive any proceeds, as they were existing shares.

Barclays downgraded Crest Nicholson, which also fell in afternoon trading, to ‘equalweight’ from ‘overweight’ and also cut its price target to 438p from 540p.

Independent oil and gas exploration and production company Energean Oil and Gas was also among the fallers after it announced its half-year results for the six months ended 30 June on Wednesday, with sales revenue falling 1.9% year-on-year to $26.3m.

The firm swung to an operating profit of $10.2m, however, compared to a loss of $7.9m in the first half of last year, with its profit before tax coming in at $82.1m, from a loss of $4.4m 12 months ago.